by Doctor Who
‘There we are, then! Only took half an hour.’ The Doctor joined him in the doorway. ‘Come on, Rose.’
‘No, Doctor, your friend stays here. The crop is at a crucial stage and the less disruption in the growth chambers the better.’ The look Fynn gave Rose was as cold as his tone. ‘On the way over, perhaps you will explain to me precisely who you are and how you come to be here.’
‘Perhaps,’ agreed the Doctor. With a roll of his eyes at Rose, he hurried from the room.
‘Stay with the girls, Basel,’ Fynn called over his shoulder, rushing to catch up.
20
Rose eyed the metallic vulture. ‘With the birds, you mean.’ She was thinking uneasily about that space pollution the Doctor had mentioned. That and the tektites around Adiel’s neck – stones made by something falling from space in the local area. You didn’t need a de-gree in weird stuff to figure out there was most likely a link here.
Adiel was staring at the golden statue too, her brown eyes glistening with the tease of tears. ‘Why’d this have to happen?’ she whispered.
‘Why today?’
‘Why any time?’ said Basel gruffly.
‘I can’t believe Kanjuchi’s dead,’ she went on. ‘If I hadn’t run out on him, maybe –’
‘Maybe you’d be dead too,’ said Rose.
The tears dropped down her cheeks and her eyelids dropped with them as the p-pill took effect. ‘Don’t let me fall asleep. There’re things. . . things I need to. . . ’ Adiel fell against the soft sofa cushions and started to snore gently.
‘That golden thing gives me the creeps,’ said Basel quietly,
‘Me too,’ Rose admitted. ‘It’s still so. . . sort of lifelike. I mean, I know it was alive, but it still looks like any second it’s going to –’
The bird suddenly turned its bald, golden head and fixed her with molten eyes. Then it launched itself up from the floor, screeching and flapping its massive, gleaming wings, flying straight for her face.
21
Rosedivedasidewithashriekofalarm,bouncedonthesofacushion and tumbled off it on to the floor. She covered the back of her head with her hands – as if that was going to make Big Bird think twice about ripping into her with that sharp, shining beak. . .
Then suddenly something hard and heavy landed on top of her. It was Basel. ‘What are you doing?’ she gasped.
‘Protecting you!’ he said, as if this was somehow obvious.
The metal vulture’s wings whistled through the air above them. ‘Get off me, you muppet!’ she hissed. ‘We’ve got to get proper cover!’
‘Under the couch,’ said Basel, and they squirmed with some difficulty beneath it.
Rose looked at him. ‘What about Adiel?’
‘Threw a blanket on her.’
‘Next time, I’ll take the blanket and you can jump on her, yeah?’
There was a loud slam as the golden creature smashed into a wall and collapsed back down to the ground. Rose watched warily from under the sofa, heart bouncing like her chest was playing ping-pong, as the bird struggled up and drunkenly tottered on its talons. With a grating, mechanical screech, it beat its heavy wings once more and flapped up at the window, only to slam into the glass. It bounced back, 23
circled and tried again. This time the window shattered. The vulture’s rasp of triumph was like gears sticking as it whooshed outside, rising up over the baking landscape.
Rose was first out from beneath the couch. ‘There goes the air-conditioning,’ she said, wincing as sandy grit blew in through the broken window. ‘Come on. We can’t let Big Bird just disappear.’
‘Who?’
Basel pulled back Adiel’s blanket, checking she was OK. It seemed that she’d slept through the whole thing.
‘Never mind,’ said Rose. ‘Let’s just get after it. It was stone dead one minute – well, metal dead – and then it came back to life! The Doctor is so gonna want to study it.’
‘Let him catch it, then.’ But almost immediately Basel seemed to have second thoughts. ‘No, hang on. You’re right. We should get after it.’
‘Why the change of mind?’
His eyes widened. ‘If the bird came back to life. . . ’
Rose nodded. ‘Maybe so’s your mate Kanjuchi.’
Basel leaped through the jagged hole in the glass, Rose right behind him, kicking up sand and bark as they ran. High above, gliding through the glaring blue of the sky, was the weird vulture. Like them, it was making for the dark silhouette of the volcano.
Fynn crept reverently through his growth chambers, the data-get held tight in one hand. Usually he loved coming here, to the cool, quiet caves. It was like a return to childhood. The chitters and scuffles of the bats reminded him of the funny noises made by the air-con in his mother’s Nigerian apartment. The warm red haze was like his old night-light.
The young Edet Fynn had spent night after night hatching plans and possibilities in his bedroom as to how he would transform the world of war and famine and death around him into one of new life. His mother was a scientist and his father had been too, but he would be greater than either.
24
Edet Fynn was going to save the world. And the things in these caves and passages would help him achieve that.
‘Oops,’ said the Doctor behind him, slipping in guano and almost losing his balance.
Fynn bit his lip and said nothing. The man had finally shown some ID that proclaimed him to be from the Global Farming Standards Com-mission, here to make a spot inspection of the agri-unit. A pain. Espe-cially on a day like this one was shaping up to be. At the back of his mind lurked the suspicion that this was all some elaborate practical joke that the staff were in on. But he would play along for now. Let them have their fun. Give people what they want and they tend to go away quicker; that had always been his mother’s advice. After what happened to his father, she never had time for anyone who-
‘Blimey, this stuff’s slippery,’ said the Doctor, almost stumbling off the pathway.
‘Be careful,’ Fynn hissed. ‘The fungus is very fragile.’
‘How did you stumble on to it, anyway?’
‘The bats’ waste had built up here in the old lava tubes for hundreds of years. A natural fungus was growing on it.’ He crept on through the cavern. ‘One of the oldest, most primitive forms of life on Earth. Fungi do not require sunlight, do not need to produce chlorophyll as plants do. They feed on anything, dead or alive, breaking down matter and digesting it in order to grow.’
‘ Almost anything,’ the Doctor agreed.
‘I am evolving in my fungus a taste for many kinds of organic matter,’ Fynn explained. ‘I have already re-engineered its DNA to increase the nutritional value. I have enhanced its life cycle so that it grows tall and fleshy. If I can only make it hardy enough to withstand different environments – extremes of heat and cold. . . ’
‘Then it could be farmed where conventional crops never grow,’ the Doctor concluded.
‘The Earth’s crust is up to fifty kilometres thick in some areas,’ said Fynn. ‘Imagine the potential crop yield if we were to farm one thou-sandth of it!’ He smiled to himself. ‘Imagine how my critics will eat their words.’
25
‘Why, what have they been having a go about?’
He paused, steeled himself. ‘The fungus is unfortunately poisonous.’
‘Ah.’ At least the Doctor didn’t laugh, as so many others had. ‘That does sort of offset the nutritional value a bit, doesn’t it?’
‘It is simply a matter of finding the right medium in which to grow the fungus. I will achieve it. I have already performed experiments which would. . . ’ He saw the exaggerated innocence in the Doctor’s expression and realised he was being patronised. ‘Those who gainsay me are fools,’ he said quietly, ‘wishing to hold back human progress.’
‘Let me guess – they see corn and aloe vera growing on the same stalk and they think Frankenstein, scary science, all that.’
‘Genetic modi
fication is more an art than a science,’ Fynn insisted.
‘So if the masses can’t eat your mushrooms, they can gather round and admire them instead, right?’ the Doctor said. ‘Well, speaking of admiring, Kanjuchi is just through here. Remember him? The member of your staff who’s dead?’
Fynn closed his eyes. This had to be a practical joke. The golden vulture, the faked readings on the data-get, it was all nonsense. . .
As they turned the corner of the sinuous passage, he was busy re-booting the sensors. And so he almost walked into Kanjuchi, gleaming like gold in the red haze, his face a metal mask, distorted with fear.
If it was a statue, it was incredibly lifelike.
‘There you go. Now, that really is a work of art.’
Fynn stared at the Doctor. ‘If you’re trying to trick me. . . ’
But the Doctor tapped the scan button on the data-get.
A few moments later the diagnosis flashed at him in cool blue liquid crystal: ORGANIC-MINERAL CONTENT, COMPOSITION UNKNOWN.
‘Kanjuchi has been affected – maybe even infected – by an alien substance.’ The Doctor was looking at him sternly, as if daring him to disagree. ‘I think it’s something that’s mixed with magma from the depths of this volcano and re-engineered it. Questions are – why, how, what and from where?’ He smiled suddenly. ‘Cheer up. At least we know when. Roughly speaking, anyway.’
‘Doctor. . . ’ The screen on the data-get had started blinking and Fynn showed him.
26
COMPOSITION SHIFTING.
Suddenly a splitting, crackling sound exploded from the golden statue. Kanjuchi’s already ample stomach seemed to swell larger.
His head bobbed slowly from side to side as his neck bulged, as if fluid was pumping beneath the gilded skin. The perfectly sculpted clothes stretched and deformed as the shoulders broadened, the legs extended. It was like looking at the same statue reflected in a distorting mirror. Bigger. Bulkier. Still more disturbing.
‘I think it’s time I did a little composition-checking of my own,’ the Doctor announced. He produced a small ceramic tool from his trouser pockets. The tip glowed blue as he held it against one of the figure’s slab-like fingers.
Then suddenly the grotesque figure lashed out in a single savage movement. Its huge hand struck the Doctor in the chest, smashing him against the rough basalt wall.
Fynn cried out in shock and alarm. He held totally still, waiting for any sign that Kanjuchi might move again. But the figure remained immobile. Cautiously, Fynn crossed to where the Doctor lay in a bony heap. ‘Are you all right?’
‘What?’ The Doctor’s eyes snapped open.’
‘S’OK, don’t worry. I think I got my sample.’ He undid the top buttons of his shirt and peered down at himself. ‘Yeah, I can just pick the residue out of my ribs.’
With a drunken smile, the Doctor’s head lolled back and his eyes shut, leaving Fynn alone with the hideous, bloated figure. Its eyes seemed fixed on him, not only reflecting the crimson light but absorbing it, burning with dark energy.
And as the shock and disbelief crowded in on his rational thoughts, the noises and the cool and the red glow signalled other childhood memories. They put him in mind of those long nights when the nightmares came, when he cried out for his dad, who was never coming back, and when the shadows pressed in all around like these dark, distorted walls.
Only down here the sun would never rise.
27
Fynn screwed up his eyes, trying to marshal his thoughts, to make sense of the impossible things he had witnessed.
When he opened them again, the burnished statue was standing a metre further to the left.
And the way into the chamber was clear.
28
Soloman watched as Nadif and a handful of the perimeter guards spread out through the crop fields, hunting for more golden creatures that only scientists could explain away.
While he wasn’t a man of science, Solomon did know one thing.
‘It’s my fault.’ he murmured aloud, wiping a trickle of sweat that the sun had no sway over from the back of his neck. All my fault.
And only I can do anything about it.
Steeling himself, he trudged off towards the sealed entrance of the eastern cave network.
The climate made running harder than Rose would have believed. The blazing sun was merciless, the air so hot it hurt to breathe. Gusts of warm wind blew sand in her eyes and she had to keep blinking them clear.
Even so, she saw the dazzling vulture swoop down on to a ledge in the foothills of the volcano. It seemed to duck down – or vulture down, anyway – and vanished from view.
Basel stopped for breath, wiping his sweaty forehead on his arm.
‘Must be a skylight.’
‘Yeah, right, a skylight in a volcano.’
29
‘An opening in the lava tube to the surface,’ he explained. ‘It’s what they’re called.’
‘So, what – maybe it built its nest there and found a way into this growth chamber place?’
‘Right.’ Basel nodded. ‘We should climb up there and check it out.’
Rose dabbed at her dusty eyes and gauged the distance. It wasn’t really so far up, but in this heat. . . ‘What’s got you so keen?’
He half-smiled. ‘Maybe I just want to impress you.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘Maybe.’
He was off again. Not to be outdone in the middle of some serious flirting, Rose forced herself to match his pace. They reached the rocky side of the volcano. A portakabin had been put up close by, some sort of storehouse. Basel stacked a number of metal billycans into makeshift steps and they soon reached the roof. From there it was a fairly challenging leap on to the sheer rock-face, but luckily there were plenty of foot- and handholds.
‘You up to it?’ he asked.
Actions spoke louder than words so she jumped, landed neatly and smiled back at him. Basel landed right beside her and scrambled swiftly up the rock. He offered her his hand to help her up on to a ledge. She accepted only so she could quickly scale the treacherous, scree-covered slope to the next ledge and offer a helping hand to him.
With a rueful smile, he accepted.
‘I think our bird took the next one up,’ Basel said, still holding on to her fingers.
She nodded, pulled her hand away. ‘Let’s slow down a little. Could be dangerous.’
Cautiously they climbed up on to a shelf cut into the bare black rock. Rose could make out a hole maybe the size of a dinner plate, with little heaps of crumbled stone marking the edges. Higher up and beyond it there lay a large, messy pile of dried-out straw, sticks and husks.
‘That must be its nest,’ said Basel warily. ‘It didn’t go back there, then.’
30
‘Needs a place with a bit more bling now,’ Rose joked. ‘Must have vanished off down that skylight of yours.’
‘Wait.’ Basel’s whole body seemed to tense. ‘Skylights are formed when the rock falls inwards. But there’s stone chips and stuff round the outside of this one.’
Rose’s eyes met his as her heart started to sink. ‘So whatever made this hole was inside the cave and tunnelling out. . . ’
Almost cheesily on cue, a blob of something like molten metal popped up from out of the hole. It kind of resembled mercury but with a golden sheen, quivering like metallic jelly. Rose and Basel took several steps backwards, almost to the edge of the ledge.
‘I know it’s hot here,’ said Rose, ‘but hot enough to melt metal?’
‘It’s cold in the caves,’ Basel told her. ‘This stuff must be what Adiel saw with. . . ’
His voice choked off as the molten golden blob started rolling towards them, gleaming in the sunlight, leaving no marks on the rock behind it.
Time we were making tracks at any rate, she thought. But out loud she simply shouted, ‘Run!’
Basel was first over the edge, but Rose was right behind him. When she reached the ledge she turned
and looked up. Saw the glob somehow sticking to the rock-face as it rolled down towards them.
‘What is that thing?’ panted Basel.
‘Dunno,’ said Rose, launching herself down the next scree-scattered slope. ‘But I think it’s hungry.’
The rough rock tore at her clothes, stung her palms and scratched her skin as she scrambled back down, Basel right beside her. At last they reached the asphalt roof of the portakabin. Rose risked an upwards glance to find the molten metallic thing was hissing its way towards them, faster and faster.
Wild-eyed and panting for breath, Basel sprinted over to the makeshift billycan stairway. He rocketed down and Rose followed
– but one of the metal canisters had been knocked loose, it gave way under her step and suddenly she was falling.
31
She hit the ground hard and awkwardly amid the clanging of tumbling billycans, and gasped as a shooting pain burned through her ankle.
In a moment Basel was beside her, helping her up. ‘You OK? Can you walk?’
‘Better hope I can run,’ said Rose grimly as the molten blob appeared at the edge of the roof, pulsing with golden light.
Suddenly it flopped off the edge and landed on the baking earth.
Rose backed away, ignored the biting pain in her ankle as the blob rolled towards her.
But Basel had crept behind it with one of the billycans and now he brought it down, spout first, on the golden blob, trapping it inside.
‘Quick, get something we can stick on top of it!’
Rose hobbled over to grab another of the fallen canisters. She planked it on top, then went to get more to stack around the sides.
Soon the billycan was buried and still.
‘Nice one, Basel,’ said Rose admiringly. ‘Simple but effective.’
Basel looked less sure. ‘We don’t know how long it’ll hold that thing.’
‘Let’s find the Doctor. He’ll be able to sort it.’ She thought hard. ‘But where’s it come from?’
‘Fynn,’ said Basel with certainty. ‘He’s been messing round with nature too long. Something like this was bound to happen.’
